Funeral held for slain North Carolina correctional sergeant
EDENTON, North Carolina (WTVD) -- Traffic was Thursday afternoon in Edenton, and the only thing that could be heard was the slow steps of six horses. The North Carolina Highway Patrol led a caisson procession in honor of Sgt. Meggan Callahan.
The Bertie County Correctional Sergeant was killed on the job a month shy of her 30th birthday.
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Hundreds of people, including Gov. Roy Cooper, attended the funeral. She was laid to rest with honors.
Services were held at Edenton United Methodist Church in Edenton.
"She was a great student, great person, and it's a big loss. Our community mourns for her," said Raye Knox, Callahan's former seventh-grade teacher.
Brian Smith went to the Academy with Callahan five years ago.
"She was a sweet person, everybody loved her," said the corrections officer. "It's just sad that it happened. Nobody want to go like that. She didn't deserve it."
Officials say last week Bertie Correctional Institution inmate Craig Wissick, who was serving a life sentence for a Cumberland County murder, took a fire extinguisher from Callahan as she was responding to a trash-can fire and attacked Callahan with it, fatally injuring her.
Callahan died an hour after the attack despite efforts by paramedics to save her.
Wissick has been moved to Central Prison in Raleigh.
He is charged with first-degree murder.
"It is sad. It was unnecessary," Knox said. "You think why, but it'll go on from here and hopefully justice will be done."
Callahan leaves behind a fiancé.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
